Once again, we are in a state of panic because we will be losing our excellent resident doctor in September when he will proceed on a Scholarship to specialise in Surgery.

Dr. Abdiqani who had gained practical experience at our hospital and later was assigned here on rotational internship, joined our staff after he completed his medical studies and internship. He lived here with us and is a highly dedicated and efficient young doctor who will be very hard to replace.

The Edna Adan Hospital which is a Teaching hospital in Hargeisa, Somaliland, is looking for a resident Medical Doctor for a long-term appointment that initially will be for 12 months.

General Job Description

TITLE : Medical Officer

REPORTS TO : Hospital Director, or to Deputy Director when the Director is
absent

LOCATION : Edna Adan Maternity Hospital in Hargeisa, Somaliland

Background of Hospital:

Against all odds, and overcoming various technical and financial constraints, the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital was opened on the 9th of March 2002, and the first baby was born on the 10th March, 2002.

Within a short time, the hospital has become a referral hospital for obstetrical and medical emergencies for a wide geographical area in the Horn of Africa.

Between the 10th of March 2002 and the end of May, 2010, nearly 10,000 babies have been born, over 900 Caesarean Sections performed, over 10,000 sick men women and children treated ihe the hospital and over 80,000 persons treated as out patients.

The hospital is a training school for nurses, midwives, medical students, phamacy assistants and laboratory teachnicians.

Several other short courses and Seminars are frequently held for various categories of health workers.

Terms of Reference of Doctor

• Train, guide and supervise junior doctors working in the hospital in order to attain the highest standard of patient care with the available resources.
• Demonstrate and teach the use of diagnostic Ultrasound
• Demonstrate and teach use of ECG
• Participate in the examination and treatment of patients attending the Prenatal, Postnatal and Family Planning Clinics
• Participate in daily ward rounds or take turns with the other doctors to treat patients.
• Treat the patients admitted to Postnatal or General ward
• Be on call for Obstetrical Emergencies for Labour and Delivery Ward as well as in the medical ward in rotation with other doctors.
• Participate in development of guidelines for implementation of routine treatment Procedures and protocols as needed.
• Assist, demonstrate and teach correct surgical procedures to national doctors and medical students.
• Participate in the training and supervision of Midwives and Nurses working, or studying at the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital
• Participate in the training and supervision of student nurse-midwives, Health Officers as well as Laboratory Technician trainees as needed.
• Advise the Hospital Director about patient care responsibilities of the hospital
• Report to the Hospital Director, and upon request by the Director, to the hospital Board of Trustees on the status of the hospital.
• Submit a brief report at end of assignment to advise on how hospital standards could be improved further.

Salary and Other Compensation

Mrs. Edna Adan Ismail
Hospital Director

Tel: 00 252 2 4426 922

The Edna Adan Maternity Hospital (EAH), University of Hargeisa (UoH) and THET have a vacancy for a full time Lead tutor to head and implement the first BSc in Midwifery in Somaliland’s history.

Since declaring independence in 1991 Somaliland has suffered many of the problems associated with post conflict including a critical shortage of health professionals. This rewarding position offers a unique opportunity to be involved in the development of human and institutional capacity, crucial for the rebuilding of the health system in Somaliland.

THET is an international non governmental organisation which has been working with health institutions in Somaliland to strengthen the health system since 2000. The Edna Adan Hospital, located in Hargeisa, Somaliland, is a non-profit charity community hospital built by the Hospital Director and founder Edna Adan Ismail. The hospital is the main teaching institution in country for midwifery with a history of training community and post basic midwives. The University of Hargeisa is the largest university in the country with a reputation for providing courses astutely designed to build human capital in key areas essential to the country’s reconstruction. The BSc Midwifery students would join the University of Hargeisa community within the Faculty of Medicine.

Role

The post holder will lead the implementation of a high quality BSc Midwifery Programme for qualified midwives, the first BSc level Midwifery course to be run in Somaliland. In consultation with EAH and the UOH s/he will take overall responsibility for the delivery and evaluation of the course. As the course lead, s/he will be responsible for planning the teaching programme; supervising course tutors (including short term international technical support) and ensuring effective mentorship of the students.

Essential

• Practicing midwife and registered in own country
• University graduate, educated at least to Master’s Level
• Education qualification or proven extensive experience of midwifery teaching at BSc level, with strong clinical and theory skills
• Fluent English speaker (the course will be delivered 100% in English)
• Strong research skills
• Strong IT skills – word, power point and excel
• Able to work independently
• Innovative and adaptable, able to work effectively in a resource constrained environment
• Strong interpersonal skills, able to communicate and collaborate effectively with people from a wide range of backgrounds

Desirable

• Substantial developing country work experience, preferably North / north-east Africa or sub-Sahara

To apply, please send a CV and a one page covering letter to Samira Abu-Helil, THET, 1 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 0AE or by email to: Samira at thet.org

*Funding for this programme and UoH accreditation is subject to approval.

This woman suffered from a vesicovaginal fistula for 20 years.

This opportunity offered free surgery and free pre and post operation care. To make this chance known to all those who could benefit from it, we utilized all the media available to us. We made radio announcements, took out ads in the local newspapers and even sent out mass SMS / mobile phone messages.

The response was the largest ever at our hospital. Over 30 women, from both Somaliland and Somalia, took part in this fistula camp.

Many of the moving stories that were related to us by the women brought tears to our eyes. One particular story stands out of a woman who has been suffering from an obstetric fistula for 20 years. She visited every traditional healer and tried every outlandish method, but she was never told that her condition could only be repaired surgically. After 20 years, she is dry and we are so grateful that we were given the chance to help this woman and others like her. We are indeed blessed.

We’re grateful and proud that the visiting team contained 2 female surgeons from Ethiopia. They were excellent surgeons and well experienced and they were also great role models for our medical students, nurses and midwives and all hospital staff who worked with them.

This intensive fistula camp was also a great opportunity for Somaliland doctors to take part in the surgeries and work with an international team.

A simple thank you is not enough to express our gratitude for the support and excellence of the WAHA and UAE Red Crescent team. The qualifications of the professionals and the quality of the surgeries performed were inspiring and unequaled.

We very sincerely hope that WAHA and UAE Red Crescent will keep us in their future plans for a visit once or twice a year, as much work still remains.

Read more at the WAHA web site: Somaliland Patients come from Somalia to be Operated in Obstetric Fistula Camp

We are proud to let you know that two of our Midwives received the Best Midwives Awards from the SNMA. Both were trained at our hospital and both work at our hospital and really deserve the honor.

Nimo and Muna receive an award

Somaliland Nursing & Midwifery Association

Meanwhile, blogger Andrew Sullivan, among others, is horrified to learn that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has endorsed a ‘kinder gentler’ form of FGM:

NEW YORK, May 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — International human rights organization Equality Now is stunned by a new policy statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which essentially promotes female genital mutilation (FGM) and advocates for “federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ‘ritual nick’,” such as pricking or minor incisions of girls’ clitorises. The Policy Statement “Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors”, issued by the AAP on April 26, 2010, is a significant set-back to the Academy’s own prior statements on the issue of FGM and is antithetical to decades of noteworthy advancement across Africa and around the world in combating this human rights violation against women and girls. It is ironic that the AAP issued its statement the very same day that Congressman Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) announced the introduction of new bipartisan legislation, The Girls Protection Act (H.R. 5137), to close the loophole in the federal law prohibiting FGM by making it illegal to transport a minor girl living in the U.S. out of the country for the purpose of FGM.

…and The Debate Continues

Here are four of the best of what was taken.

There are many (many!) more photos in the Edna Hospital Photo Gallery.

Edna with 2010 nursing school graduates

At first we had planned to hold the ceremony in the open but were pushed indoors by the rains.

The graduation ceremony of the 34 girls and 11 boys was honored by the presence of the Somaliland Minister of Health; the Governor of Hargeisa – whose daughter was also graduating; the Deans of the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Science of Hargeisa University; the Vice-President of Hargeisa University; Members of Parliament; and the family and friends of our graduates.

We have added a new gallery of photos of this event to the Gallery section of our web site: Edna Hospital 2010 Graduation Ceremony

Some mullahs in Afghanistan are distributing condoms. Others are quoting the Quran to encourage longer breaks between births. Health experts say contraception is starting to catch on in a country with the world’s second highest maternal death rate.

Afghanistan has one of the world’s highest fertility rates, averaging more than six babies per woman despite years of war and a severe lack of medical care. Awareness of, and access to, contraceptives remains low among many couples, with UNICEF estimating 10 percent of women using some form of birth control.

But use of the pill, condoms and injected forms of birth control rose to 27 percent over eight months in three rural areas — up to half the woman in one area — once the benefits were explained one-on-one by health workers, according to the report published Monday in Bulletin, the World Health Organization’s journal.

The full Associated Press article goes on to mention, “Afghanistan’s maternal death rate of 1,800 per 100,000 live births is topped only by Sierra Leone worldwide, according to UNICEF. The U.S. rate is 11 per 100,000 births.” Edna Adan contests that statement:

Regarding Maternal Mortality, Somaliland has never had a maternal mortality assessment since the 1982-1991 war when at that time the country had the highest mortality rate. Since whatever facilities that were in place at that time became destroyed, and very little has been done to improve matters, I am sure that these two countries have far better health facilities and far fewer problems than our nomadic women who are poor, illiterate, malnourished and without any rural health services in place.

That is why we are training community midwives to go to some of these remote locations where they have never had even a midwife before. My aim now is to train 1000 community midwives if God in His Grace gives me life to do it in the next six years.

And, some more news today:

Today is a big day for us here. This afternoon, we the graduation ceremony for 45 students who were the third group of General Nurses trained in our hospital. Among them are 11 boys who are the first male student nurses trained at our hospital and who were great students.

Read Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof

For Westerners, the words “gender inequality” are likely to suggest pay differentials and glass ceilings and old-boy networks. For the women and girls Kristof and WuDunn write about, gender inequality is more elemental. It takes the form of sexual slavery and other kinds of bondage; rape and other kinds of physical and mental assaults; and the withholding of medicine, food, and other privations; and it issues from a belief so fixed as to be unimpeachable: women are less human than men. (Not that they are less worthy, but that they are, fundamentally, less human.)

Using examples from the book, Halpern shows that how it really is possible to turn “turn oppression into opportunity.”

It is now pretty much taken for granted that educating girls has an ameliorating effect on almost every social indicator, most especially family income and family size, and that this in turn reduces the violence that stems from resource wars. An education doesn’t necessarily mean book-learning, either: one of the stipulations made by Edna Adan when she was building her hospital was that the brickmakers teach women their trade. Somaliland now has its first women brickmakers; those women now have a marketable skill. As Muhammad Yunus and his colleagues at Grameen have demonstrated, enabling women to enter the workforce itself leads to more education and the spread of literacy. It’s the opposite of a vicious circle.

Edna highly recommends the full article.

Edna Maternity Hospital

We would like to thank the “Friends of Edna Hospital Society in Vancouver” for a generous donation of US$1800 they have sent to the Edna Adan Hospital as well as another amount of US$850 they have sent to the Las Anood Hospital through us with instructions that we buy medical supplies for that hospital.

The money was brought to us by Mr. Rashid Ayanshe Ibrahim, who is the Chairman of the Friends of Edna Hospital Society in Vancouver which is a group formed by Somalis living in the Diaspora. This is the first time that a group of Somalis have mobilised themselves on their own to raise funds for our hospitals.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who took the trouble to raise awareness about the needs of our people, and all those who donated funds to support our hospitals. We will be taking pictures of the supplies we buy for the Las Anood Hospital when the package is put together.